


a desire to be both weird and adored

by ships_to_sail



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Blow Jobs, Fluff and Angst, Harry Styles - Freeform, M/M, Nonsense, Patrick Brewer is Gay, Songfic, soft boys in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:02:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 6,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21881965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ships_to_sail/pseuds/ships_to_sail
Summary: 13 songs2 soft boys1 great love storyOr: What if Harry Styles' new album was all about David and Patrick?
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 24
Kudos: 65
Collections: Schitt's Creek Open Fic Night 2.0





	1. Golden

**Author's Note:**

> It does what it says on the tin! 
> 
> These stories aren't chronological, aren't always interrelated (although some are), and are 1000% intended to be enjoyed alongside the musical stylings of Lesbian Icon Harry Styles.

The minute Patrick sees them, he knows. They look exactly the same as the silver ones, with one key difference - they’re gold. A burnished, warm gold that reminds Patrick of captured firelight and the warmth of summer sunshine. Reminds of Patrick of David, of the way he warms him up from the inside out. It seems like a sign from fate that there are exactly four of them sitting next to each other, same size, same style, lined up the way they’ll look when David’s wearing them, and Patrick can see it now. It makes it all real for him, slams it into his chest. He calls the clerk over and tells her exactly what he wants, and he doesn’t bother looking at the receipt when he signs it because, really, it doesn’t matter.

Later, at home, with David asleep in bed and snoring lightly, he sneaks to the closet and slips the box out of his bat bag. It’s the one place in the apartment he knows David will never, ever check. He crosses to the small desk they keep in the corner and flips on the small lamp, holding his breath in the dim golden light that radiates outward from the desk. The thin ring of light stops just short of their bed, however, and David continues to sleep soundly. Patrick exhales slowly and slips into the low-backed chair, grabbing a pen out of the cup and clicking it a few times before pinching it in his teeth. 

It’s not that he doesn’t know what to write. It’s that he wants to write a million things, wants to write a novel to explain to David just how much he means to Patrick, how much the last months of his life have become the most important, the most revolutionary of all the ones he’s spent on Earth so far. He wants to cut himself open and bleed onto the paper, to write enough words in the right order that David will understand just how completely and irrevocably at home Patrick feels with him.

But he can’t do that, not this time at least, because whatever he writes has to fit in the tray beneath the rings in the black velvet box. He’s got their backpacks packed, minus the ice packs and the cheese, and Patrick can close his eyes and picture it now. The clean, crisp air at the top of the mountain, the way the entire valley will spread out below them like an ocean of emerald and verdigris. He can feel the warmth of the sun on his face and can see David’s grin and he knows what he needs to write.

After a couple of false starts, Patrick finally manages to get all the words in the right order, and even has handwriting looking more than decent by the third time he’s written it all down. But then it’s done, and he sits back in the chair and reads it one more time to make sure. He nods and gently rips the paper, wetting the edge with his tongue to keep the tear even. He slips it beneath all four of the rings and snaps the box closed, panicking for a second when the sharp sound makes David turn in his sleep, muttering softly. He tucks the box into the front of one of the backpacks and quickly climbs back into bed next to David.

It’s not until years later that the paper is found, lost in the chaos of the hike, the proposal, the opening night of Cabaret. David pins it to their bulletin board, a collection of life’s ephemera that hangs on one wall of their apartment, and smiles at it every time he passes:

I know that you’re scared because hearts get broken. But I can feel you take control of who I am and all I’ve ever known. You’re golden.


	2. Watermelon Sugar

“How many more do we have after this one?”

“Two. And then a honey balm.”

Patrick grumbles and puckers his lips, an absurd exaggeration of the face he makes when he’s kissing. David reaches out with his index finger and gently begins to scrub at Patrick’s lips. Small clumps of sugar and glitter fall onto the top of Patrick’s thighs and the edge of the sink he’s currently perched on in the stock room. David’s finger runs softly along the edge of Patrick’s mouth, tracing the line where pink met white, the small scratching sound of the exfoliator forming a rhythm with David’s gentle exhales.

He loves getting to touch Patrick like this. So...so singly, with such clear intent and focus. It reminds him of the first time he gave Patrick a blow job, the first time he ate Patrick’s ass, the first time he said I love you. All of those times were a bit more intense than trying out a new locally sourced line of lip products, but the feeling of getting to put all his attention and focus and obsession into Patrick, into how Patrick looks and feels and tastes - that’s the same. 

“So. What do we think of this one?” David wipes his fingers on the towel draped next to Patrick, his eyes sparkling as he watches Patrick dart out his tongue and scoop up a little of the sugar scrub, smacking his lips and making them twinkle in the overhead lighting. He cocks his head, considering, and makes such a cute face that David is tempted to dart forward and lick into his mouth, to wash of the exfoliator with his tongue. Instead, he rocks back on his heels and waits for Patrick’s opinion. Keeping his hands - and his mouth to himself - was one of the ground rules Patrick set before agreeing to help him with this round of product testing. David had agreed reluctantly, and that reluctance had only grown as they’d sampled an elderberry under-eye cream, a new unisex cologne, and the first of a berry-themed lip product bundle.

Which meant all that was left were the last two scrubs.

“It’s okay. It’s kind of...sour, almost. Like it’s not sweet enough.”

“It’s a sugar scrub.”

“I know that. You asked my opinion. I’d pass on the blackberry.” 

David nods and hand Patrick the washcloth, damp and cold, and watches with sweating palms as he wipes off the scrub, his lips red and slightly swollen. David plucks the next jar off the table to his left and unscrews it, shivering at the sound of plastic on sugar that scrapes down his spine. They go through the same routine as last time, David’s fingers tracing the scrub into the tender flesh of Patrick’s lips. 

“This one is better, for sure. Tastes like summer strawberries.”

“It is strawberry.”

“Just because something has a flavor doesn’t mean it tastes like what it’s supposed to.”

“That is a fair assessment, ask me later about the time that Antoni actually made me that awful pea guacamole.”

Patrick’s eyes are alive with laughter. “Oh, I most definitely will.” Patrick wipes off the scrub again, and his looks are starting to look more red than pink. When David touches his lips this time, he winces slightly, for as gentle as David is being. It’s hard work to have your lips exfoliated three times in a row. But then he licks out again with that addictive and infuriating tongue and his eyes light up. “This one.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh, absolutely.” He plucks the little jar out of David’s hand and turns it to look at the label. “Watermelon Sugar it is.”

David nods resolutely and takes the little jar back from him. “Well then we are officially done with product testing.”

“But what about-”

Patrick’s rebuttal is swallowed when David kisses him deeply, licking into Patrick just like he’d imagined. He feels like he’s breathing Patrick in, drawing him inside, the need for him filling his body like oxygen, and he knows he can’t ever live without this. Without Patrick, and this life they’re building, sweet like the watermelon sugar that’s now all over the both of them.


	3. Adore You

“Consider it a little right of passage.”

“David, I didn’t come out of the closet until I was 31. Can’t we just count that as all my rites of passage rolled up into one?”

“Absolutely not. Plus I promised Ronnie you’d be there for her birthday. You wouldn’t want to be a liar, would you?”

“I wouldn't be a liar, David, that's not how that works.”

“Um, yes you would. And Patrick Brewer isn’t a liar, so. Stop talking.” Patrick opens and closes his mouth a few more times before David glares at him so sharply, it really does scare him a little bit. He snaps his mouth shut and just in time, too, because David runs the soft end of an applicator over his lips and sits back admiringly. "Yep, mmhmm. I was absolutely correct."

He reaches behind him and grabs a mirror and Patrick has to admit - he does look pretty hot. Really hot. He's got on the same smudged eyeliner he had for Cabaret and his hair is a little longer, so you can see the curl. David's put some gloss on that smell like strawberries and makes his mouth look full and wet. He'd kiss himself, but he'd rather kiss David, whose dark eyes he can see looking into the mirror over his shoulder. He's looking at Patrick like he knows he's right, and Patrick tells them as much. 

"I know. Like I said. Absolutely correct." Patrick leans forward to kiss him but David dodges out of the way with a screech and lamentations about messing up recently finished artwork. Patrick laughs and holds his cheek out for David instead, who is happy to oblige. 

*

Later that night, dancing to a pounding baseline in the only gay club in two municipalities, he's completely dead. He collapses into a bar stool and orders a bottle of water, swallowing half of it before he even slides a $10 to the bartender. He breathes deeply through his nose and takes another small drink of water, his eyes finding David in the crowd.

He's dancing with his eyes closed and his arms over his head, his flame sweater riding up and flashing a thin strip of skin, browned from their summer trip to Garibaldi Lake. He's in between Twyla and Alexis and the red glitter across his cheekbones flashes at Patrick and he looks like he's on fire. 

It sends a bolt of lightning through Patrick, melts his bones and twists his stomach. This creature, this stunning, moving, sparkling creature is his, and that's enough. He'd walk through fire for him. He wants to spend the rest of his life in moments like this, when the air is full of light and sound and sweat and sheer, incandescent joy. He wants to use every breath and every moment he’s got left adoring David, like David deserves to be adored. Beautiful, odd, creative, adorable David. 

Patrick finishes his bottle of water and tosses it in the trash, heading straight for David and pressing their bodies together until the point where Patrick is Patrick and David is David disappears completely.


	4. Lights Up

“You don’t ever miss her, do you?” He doesn’t mean to ask the question, and he wishes he could shove the words back in his mouth the second he hears them.

Patrick lifts his head off David’s chest and looks at him, eyes guarded. “Rachel?”

“Please don’t tell me there’s another her.” David laughs, a little sound that cuts the edge of shrill in a way that makes Patrick sit up completely and press his back against the headboard.

“Of course not, David. And — no, I don’t miss her. Not like that. Sometimes I miss-” he shuts his mouth so abruptly David hears his teeth click together. He winces and then tries to rearrange is face into something resembling neutrality. He reaches out and puts his hand on top of Patrick’s, watching the way the streetlight through the window barely reflects off the polished silver. 

“Sometimes you miss what?”

Patrick takes a few deep breaths through his nose, and David wants to press rewind, wants to shove this entire conversation back in the box and go back to when they were cuddling, sweaty and exhausted and satisfied after a solid post olive branch fuck. Instead, he was asking Patrick questions about feelings and didn’t even have the strength to muster his normal prickly defenses.

“Sometimes I miss all that time we spent together. It’s like,” Patrick begins to trace along David’s knuckles and David shivers, trying very hard to focus on Patrick’s words. “Like, that was still my life, you know. All those little moment with her, the grocery shopping and the rainy Sundays and. Just. All of that time that passed was my life, and it feels so different from this life, here, with you.”

“We have rainy Sundays. You go grocery shopping.”

Patrick huffs out something that could be a laugh and could be a sob. “Yeah. And I love our life David. But — sometimes this thing we have is so new, so bright, it’s hard to look head on. And I know I could never go back to what I had with Rachel. To the kind of life we were building. But sometimes I miss being able to think about that time without seeing it in all that shade.”

“I’m sorry about the way all of this happens.” He tries to keep the hurt out of his voice, and he thinks he mostly succeeds from the way Patrick’s hands keep moving along his wrist and forearm. He knows what Patrick is trying to say, and can’t imagine how hard it must be to feel so different in your life, to have shifted the path of your future so fundamentally, and what that must do to how you remember who and what you were before.

Still, it makes David feel better when Patrick pulls his hand to his lips and kisses each of his knuckles gently, breathing warmly on the silver rings and running his thumb over them so that they shine a little brighter in the dim light. “You know I mean it when I say I wouldn’t go back to that, for anything.” 

“Mmhmm. I do.”

Patick kisses the pulse point on the inside of his wrist, and then the soft flesh of his inner elbow. “And you know what you do to me, don’t you David?”

“I’m learning, yes.” Patrick drops his arm and pivots, swinging his leg over David’s hip so that he’s straddling him, palms to the headboard so that his arms cage David in. He presses his lips softly to the small hollow at the base of his throat.

“You light me up, David Rose.”

David doesn’t say a word, but the noise he makes is ungodly and raw.


	5. Cherry

Patrick had a fiancé and he didn't tell David and none of this is fine. David's stomach rumbles as he sinks to the bed but how can he be hungry when his stomach is full of cement? Patrick is bringing him food and Patrick said he feels seen by David but Patrick hadn't said he had a fiancé so David doesn't really know how to feel about the things Patrick says and doesn't say.

He closes his eyes and tries to breathe but he can't. He feels it slipping away, this potential future he was just beginning to let himself imagine. He clenches his fist and is sad when it doesn't have Patrick's hand in it, and then he's not just sad but he's angry. He's pissed off and he can't sit still anymore. So he doesn't. He storms out of the room and away from the hotel. He can hear Patrick calling his name, can see the plate he's holding, but he doesn't stop. He walks until he hits the treeline and stops, because he's not a moron and not into the woods, pivoting instead to walk in the tall grass along the edge of the woods.

With every step, an image fills his brain, one that rises to him whole and unrequested. It's Patrick, and he's at an art gallery like the ones David used to own, and he's got his arm around a faceless figure who could be a man or a woman but was decidedly not David. And he's talking to this new person the same way he talks to David, leaning over with his owlish eyes and sincere little smile, whispering 'babe' and 'sweetheart' with that same lilting cadence Patrick has when it's so late at night it might be early in the morning. It's so real, David he thinks he could probably reach out and touch it if it didn't terrify him down to the core of his bones.

He hears Patrick walking up behind him, but he doesn't turn around, refuses to let Patrick see him with his eyes all puffy and his face splotchy red like it gets when he's really, really trying not to cry.

"David‐"

"Mm, yeah, no, I'm fine. Just. Lots of tall grass, um. Allergies. In the air."

"Sweetheart," and even though Patrick is sweet when he says it, it's exactly the wrong thing to say. That other-person daytime nightmare comes flooding back into David's vision. 

"Don't," he hisses.

"What?"

"Don't call me that. Don't –" the words are dying on his tongue. "Don't call me what you used to call her, what you're going to call them, just." David waves his hand through the air at some imaginary crowd and swallows to stop himself from saying something else. Something mean. "Don't make this harder."

Patrick's body goes eerily still. "What 'them'? David what're you talking about?"

David opens his mouth to tell him. He really does, he can do that with Patrick, can tell him truths and show him the dark corners of himself. But that Patrick didn't tell David he had – has? oh my god what if it's has – a fiancé. So David shuts his mouth with a little click that makes his teeth hurt. 

"I think you should go."

It's not until he's walking away that David notices that Patrick is wearing different jeans. Nice jeans. The exact nice jeans David had been pining over online just last week. And seeing the premium denim on Patrick's mid-range self broke the last bits of David's heart into pieces.


	6. Falling

It's the crystalline sound of glass shattering that wakes him up. Patrick starts and searches for the source of the sound, realizing after a few long seconds that it's him, he's the source – or, rather, it's the highball glass that just dropped from his hand onto the hardwood. He stares at his empty hand where the glass used to be and he can feel the voice in his head telling him to get up, to get the broom, to clean the spill so he's not drunkenly walking on glass later.

But then he sees the bottle sitting on the floor and it's not empty yet and much louder voices are telling him that's a much better idea. The whiskey burns on the way down but not as much as it should and his chest aches and his heart hurts and he feels like it's not enough.

He thought he'd be immune to breakups by now, he had so many with Rachel. But then David had looked at him with tears in his beautiful black eyes, tears Patrick had put there, and he called himself damaged goods and Patrick had put those words there, too, in a way, and he hates himself. 

He'd so badly wanted to avoid fucking it all up. David makes him feel like he's coming apart at the seams, makes him feel all his feelings at the same time and he's not used to that. Not used to the little boxes of his feelings spilling all over each other, and since he doesn't know how to pick them all apart it just seemed so much easier to keep his mouth shut. 

But it turns out keeping his mouth shut had blown up in his face and now he's mostly passed but not enough to keep his brain from listing all the ways he's irrevocably ruined maybe the best thing he's ever had. 

And the worst part is that, truly, he's kind of relieved it's all over. He didn't like not telling David, didn't like the person it was turning him into. Patrick Brewer wasn't raised a liar and he didn't like lying to anyone but himself. 

He finishes the bottle and it wasn't full when he started but it was close enough that he is now fully, woefully, sloppily drunk. He pulls out his phone and closes one eye to keep the room from spinning and he types out a text to David. And erases it. Types again and deletes it all, at least four more times before he gives up and texts Alexis instead. He passes out watching the screen, willing those three little dots to pop up in the corner so he knows she's typing and she's willing to talk to him and maybe things aren't as bad as he remembers them being. Maybe he's misremembering the look on David's face.

When he comes to he's got cotton in his mouth and acid in his stomach and it he's got a blissful 30 seconds of wondering why before it all punches him in the chest again. His stomach heaves and he races towards the bathroom, phone clattering to the floor.

**10:13pm**

i’m sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry please    
don’t hate me

**Littlebit Alexis 12:51am**

_ (212) 539-0227 _

Davids a mess whats wrong

**Littlebit Alexis 2:07am**

_ (212) 539-0227 _

WTF Patrick?!?!?! >:(

**Littlebit Alexis 5:45am**

_ (212) 539-0227 _

Fix this


	7. To Be So Lonely

"I'm not sure I said that."

"You didn't have to. In fact, your silence spoke volumes."

"So you would like to focus on the store then?"

"I think that's probably a good idea. But hey! Good to have you back."

And then Patrick hugs him. Like he doesn't know what that will do to David. Like it's a completely normal thing to do, to break up with someone and then give them a hug. David had been broken up with literally hundreds of times and no one had ever hugged him after. Now it's so completely, unbelievably awkward that David's confession turns to ash on his tongue and he nods, confused smile stuck to his face. 

Later Patrick goes to get a tea and David's left standing in the middle of their empty store and feels like a little boy in his dad's suit. He feels like a fool. He didn't say anything because he's a self absorbed son of a bitch who liked getting the gifts, instead. He's a 36-year-old man who can't admit when he's wrong, who had to teach himself how to apologize. That's shitty. He's shitty. 

He'd told Patrick not to call him 'baby' anymore and he meant it, but then he'd come in to the store and seen Patrick's perfect pink little mouth and he wanted to hear it. Wanted to hear anything and everything Patrick wanted to say to him. Only, now Patrick just wants to focus on the store and be the kind of friends who hug platonically and just the word platonic makes David's stomach flip uncomfortably. 

He should respect what Patrick said. Patrick had just given him a giant speech all about how that was the exact problem. That he, Patrick, hadn't been listening to David and that was a problem because good people listen when other people establish limits. So he should listen to Patrick and focus on the store. He's still just standing and staring and if he doesn't move soon someone on the street is going to think he's had some sort of stroke. Or worse, Patrick is going to come back and see him slack-jawed and reeling. He vaguely remembers Patrick saying something a few days ago about being behind on inventory. He finally manages to make his legs move and he goes to the back room to grab the binder they keep all the forms in. The binder was Patrick's idea, of course. 

David misses Patrick. The thought occurs to him so sharply and suddenly it stops him in his tracks. Literally. He stops walking mid-stride and let's a quiet "oh my god" escape. He can't remember ever missing someone before. Longing for someone, like, physically, sure. Regretful of someone's now-absent pocketbook, or Maserati, or tickets to Sundance. But missing someone required you like someone and David had never liked anyone like he likes Patrick. David misses Patrick, and he's lonely. He's so unbelievably, undeniably lonely, and for the first time in a long time that's really, really starting to bother him.

So he starts counting shampoos where Patrick left off, based on the form, and starts to plan. He's not very good at planning but he thinks he can come up with something. 

He misses Patrick. His mind and his heart and the shape of his lips and that means David isn't going to be able to listen to Patrick on this one.


	8. She

“Earth to Patrick,” Ray’s voice is loud in his ear and Patrick jumps about a foot in the air, heat rushing to his face as he worked to get his suddenly racing heart back under control.

“Sorry, Ray. What do you need?”

“No apologies necessary, I was just asking if you'd had a chance to look over that grant application for the closet organization business?”

Shit. Patrick had completely blanked it. "I'm in the middle of it, actually. I was planning on having it to you after lunch."

"Perfect." Ray returns to his photography studio/living room and begins to fuss with props. Patrick quickly slides the folder Ray gave him out of his top desk drawer and began to read. Quickly. If he focuses, and takes a long lunch, he could probably get the paperwork back to Ray today. Maybe. If he stays away from the window. 

The problem is, all he wants to do is go to the window. He's distracted, and he hates it, hates that it’s affecting his work. But he can't seem to stop himself. He couldn’t stop looking for...whoever he was. Patrick had seen him last week, heading from Bob’s to the Café, and something about the man caught his attention. It could’ve been the way he seemed to be wearing skirted jeans and a black and white striped sweater. In the middle of summer. Without breaking a sweat. It could’ve been the way he was talking to the woman next to him, a woman who looked like she was wearing a wig as a hat, his arms waving broadly, kinetically, from his shoulders to the tips of his silver-clad fingers. It could’ve been the black eyes and striking eyebrows and the angular cut of his jaw that was simultaneously sharp and soft, a walking contradiction. Whatever it was, Patrick hadn’t seen him since that one all-too-brief sighting and he needed to get a grip.

The more Patrick tried not to think about him, though, tried not to pinpoint exactly what it was about him that kept that 90 second walk playing on a loop through his mind, the more the man was all he could think about. He imagined running into him at the Café, finally getting his name over a cup of coffee. He imagined running into him at the old general store, picking up a plunger or toilet paper or something equally mundane. He imagined running into him in the middle of the street and explaining that he had to know his name so he could stop thinking about him as That Guy every time he thought about him, which was all the goddamn time. He imagined so many different ways and scenarios and potential scripts that he dreamt about it, once, a half-remembered conversation that left him drenched in sweat, heart racing when he woke up. 

The guys face is the last one he thinks about when he goes to bed and the first one he thinks about when he gets up and the fact that he doesn’t even know the guys name, doesn’t know where he lives or if he even lives in Shitt’s Creek, is just. No longer going to work. He makes a vow to ask Ray after lunch, when he hands gives him back his report. 

Which, he will finish as soon as he knocks out his last appointment of the morning.

“B13,” he hears Ray say.


	9. Sunflower, Vol. 6

It’s the easiest decision they make while planning their wedding. Patrick looks up from the computer, where he's been quickly tabbing through spreadsheets, and says, "I'd really love to have sunflowers."

And David looks up from a flip book of fabric samples and simply says, "Okay."

Patrick’s expecting more push back. He knows David doesn't like roses – "um hi obviously" – but he's been anticipating paying out the ears for a bunch of tropical blooms or something. In fact, he's even put 'unreasonable number of flowers' on the spreadsheet David doesn't see. But when he crooks an eyebrow, David just shrugs a shoulder.

"I haven't finalized the mood board yet but based on my initial brainstorms, I don’t see any reasons sunflowers won’t work. Besides,” he returns his attention to the samples, his voice dropping, “I like sunflowers.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. Why do you sound so astounded?”

“Because sunflowers seem so...simple, for your tastes.”

“I’m going to ignore the way you just said ‘tastes’ like it’s a dirty word, and instead remind you that sunflowers are classic.”

“And we want our wedding to be classic?”

“We want our wedding to be perfect.” He doesn’t look at Patrick, so he misses the way Patrick’s eyes fill with something that looks very much like pure adoration. 

“Dance with me.”

“Oh that will not be happening.”

“Call it practice. For the wedding.”

“Speaking of things that won’t be happening.”

“You don’t want to marry me anymore?”

“I meant the dancing!!” David throws down the sample book in a huff and it’s the perfect time to grab David’s hand and pull him to his feet.

“Dance with me, David.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket and connects it to the bluetooth speaker, pressing play and letting whatever he’d been listening to last fill their small apartment. David stays stiff on his feet for a few beats as awkwardly sways them around before relenting and relaxing, dropping his arms around Patrick’s neck and letting his fingers wind into his hair. The two sway to the music gently, and David hears Patrick sing along a bit under his breath. He ducks his head and kisses him, stealing Patrick’s song and his breath and the beating of his heart.

“So. Why do you want such classic flowers at our wedding?”

Patrick laughs. “Sunflowers are my favorite flower.”

“Really? I didn’t know that! Why didn’t I know that?”

“I’m a man of mystery, Rose, try and keep up.” David scoffs and rolls his eyes, but he kisses Patrick again before he continues. “But really. My Poppa Brewer always used to say sunflowers are the Brewer family flower. They’re hearty, and hale, and they can populate a field like weeds if you let them go unchecked.” Patrick laughs softly, and David doesn’t quite understand, but he also thinks maybe it’s a Patrick’s family thing and he doesn’t really need to understand. “They’re alway looking for the sun. Always turning themselves towards the light, the warmth. You can literally change the way they grow by changing the light source.”

David clears his throat. “That’s beautiful.”

“Yeah. It is.”

“Does your family really have an official flower?”

“No. But I’m thinking maybe ours should.”


	10. Canyon Moon

“Mmm’ello?”

“Patrick?”

“David?! What’s wrong?” David can feel the panic in his voice.

“Nothing, nothing. I’m driving home and I’m exhausted and I need someone to talk to.”

“I thought you were staying overnight?”

“I was. The water main at the hotel had other ideas.”

David’s been gone the last three day on a massive scouting run for some of the potential vendors who lived a little further out than Schitt’s Creek. He’d been planning on getting home tomorrow, but that was when his hotel had been able to provide him with shower and bathroom access.

“It’s dangerous to be on your cell phone while you drive, David.”

“Not as dangerous as it is for me to drive with my eyes closed. So come on, talk to me. What’re you thinking about?”

“That time in the canyon.”

David almost swallows his tongue and he has to white-knuckle the steering wheel to keep from veering into the other lane, which is terrifying even if there aren’t any other cars on the road. “Patrick!”

“You asked!”

“I didn’t think that would be your answer!”

“I miss you, babe.” His voice is soft and sleepy and he only calls David babe right before they fall asleep at night and David misses him so sharply it feels like he’s got something wedged under his ribs, right about where his heart should be.

“I miss you, too.”

“Do you remember the canyon?” And now David knows he’s fading because no way in hell would David ever forget that stop, and Patrick knows it. 

They’d been driving back from a similar trip, and it had been pouring most of the weekend. Which, considering how many of their local vendors were artisans with outdoor workspaces, had made the trip decidedly less entertaining. But on the drive home, the clouds had parted and they could see clear sky and Patrick talked David into stopping so that they could look at the stars. Stars they could actually see, out on the road and away from the city, and they laid back on the hood of the car and Patrick named the constellations he could remember from Canada Scouts and a few David’s still pretty sure he made up. 

They’d looked at the stars until David got bored, and then he gave Patrick a blow job while Patrick looked at the stars, spread out on the hood of the car like a music video. And it was awkward and uncomfortable but when he looked up at Patrick, his head thrown back and the veins in his neck thrown into relief by the moonlight above them, David wondered for a second if this was what it’s like to exist in a painting, or a song. Patrick was a work of art and that moment was a small miracle of his own creation. David had never been able to forget it.

He can hear Patrick breathing heavily into the receiver “Hey?” David clears his throat and says it again, this time without his voice breaking. “Hey, you still there Patrick?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m here. Where are you now?”

“Just passed the exit to Elmdale.”

“You want me to stay on the line with you?”

“No, go get some sleep babe. I love you.”

“I love you too. Hurry home.”

He hangs up before David can tell him that’s always been the plan.


	11. Treat People with Kindness

“Maybe you can find a place out there to feel good in your life, Patrick. It might make you nicer.”

Rachel had said the words to him in anger, but that didn’t make them wrong. In fact, she was much more likely to tell him how she really felt if she was mad. Or annoyed. Or hurt. The fact that she only got really honest with him when she was feeling negative in some way probably should have been a red flag that something between them wasn’t right. But Patrick hadn’t listened. Not then, when she’d said it, and not the next three times they’d broken up and gotten back together. 

Here, in his car, driving away from his family and his job and his friends and Rachel, the words come back to him, filling his mind, and it feels oddly prophetic. At the time, she’d been yelling at him about his depression — no, that wasn’t fair. She was yelling at him because he’d been taking her depression out on her. It had been a long time since Patrick felt good in his life, and Rachel knew that better than anybody. 

Maybe she was right. Maybe the thing he needed to do was change his surroundings, find some place where nobody knew who he was and where he didn’t have to live up to anyone else’s expectations. Some place he could feel good about his life, stop feeling like every decision he made was the impossibly wrong one, like he was dooming his life from the starting line without ever knowing how to change it. 

He pulls off because it’s the first sign he’s seen for over an hour, and because the tears in his eyes are finally thick enough he can’t see through them safely anymore. It doesn’t hurt that the sign for the town - a place called Schitt’s Creek, of all things - makes him laugh, and that feels better, too. Feels like a break, like he’s slipping the pressure valve.

He doesn’t know, of course. No one ever does, when they pull off at the stop that’s the ending of an old place and the beginning of a new one. If he did, he might have stopped his car and taken a picture, a selfie by the sign, of a Patrick who doesn’t smile, doesn’t play the guitar anymore, doesn’t really go to church or the gym or the pickup baseball games that used to fill his life; a Patrick who hasn’t yet met the love of his life, or the family that will take him in and make him feel like, in a different life in an alternate timeline, he may not have had to go searching so hard for the things that make him happy. 

But he doesn’t know any of that when he pulls over in a town with a restaurant that’s open and a name that makes him smile and a for-rent sign in one of the houses he sees just off the main street.


	12. Fine Line

“I can’t fucking do this anymore!” David is panicking, is hand waving over the table spread with magazines and lists and fabric bits and fake centerpiece flowers and bits of cake and all the other chaos that comes with trying to plan a wedding.

“Come on, David.” Patrick takes a few deep breaths, trying to keep his cool. This is the third tantrum David has thrown today and it’s starting to wear on Patrick. “All we have to do is finalize the guest list.”

“You finalize the guest list,” David pushes the stack of papers across the table to Patrick. “I’m not kidding. I’m done.”

“I don’t want to fight about this.”

“Then don’t! I’m not fighting.” David stands up and his entire body is rigid and his eyes are wild when he finally meets Patrick’s gaze. Patrick feels something inside him ping.

“Hey. Hey, come here.” He invites David to him, but doesn’t wait for him to move, going to him instead, wrapping his arms around David. This close, he can hear David’s breaths coming short and ragged, and there’s a shake in his hands that Patrick hasn’t ever seen before. He’s not talking, he’s not moving, he’s just standing, terror on his face. “Breathe, David. Breathe.”

Patrick’s hand trails up and down David’s back, and the other grabs his hand, twining their fingers together and lifting their joined hands to his chest. “I’m right here, babe. I’ve got you.” He puts one hand on David’s cheek and forces him to meet his eye, breathing louder to give David something to mirror. He can see the moment David comes back into his body and is with Patrick again. It’s terrifying. “There you are.”

“That was...scary.”

“Yeah, mmhmm. Fine line between panicking and panic attack. You wanna sit down?” One look back at the table and Patrick can see the panic start to rise on his face again. “Or, you know what, let’s go for a walk.”

He helps David into his coat and then grabs their keys and it doesn’t really matter that it’s 11:00 at night because it’s Schitt’s Creek and no one will be out to see them, post-panic and in pajamas anyway.

“I don’t want this wedding to do this to you.” The air outside is warm and wet with late summer heat and it feels good after the chill of the air conditioning. “None of this is worth it.”

“Okay.”

“Hey. Hear me. THIS is not worth. YOU are worth everything, David Rose. I need to know you understand the difference.” David doesn’t say anything, but he nods and squeezes Patrick’s hand tightly and Patrick thinks that’s just going to have to be enough for the moment. “You are worth more to me than anything.”

“Well. You can’t put a price on devotion, they say.”

“Then consider me devoted. An acolyte. A founding member of the Church of David Rose. Hm. Temple of David Rose?”

“Altar would probably cover all your bases.”

“Right, of course. Thank you for your help.”

“Always.”

“Call it what you want. I worship you. And I want the world to see it.”

“Even if it’s $95 a head?”

“Especially then.”

They go home, and they clear off the table, and when they lay in bed together that night, David pulls Patrick to his chest and whispers “we’ll be alright” into his ear until he falls asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> This 1000% would not have been done if it weren't for storieswelove, they are an angel an a lifesaver.
> 
> Title from the Rolling Stone review of the album "Fine Line"


End file.
